Nursing education in the United States and England between 1850-1920: A critical analysis of the influence of Florence Nightingale.
Item
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Title
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Nursing education in the United States and England between 1850-1920: A critical analysis of the influence of Florence Nightingale.
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Identifier
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AAI9830770
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identifier
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9830770
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Creator
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Svitlik, Barbara Anne.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Samuel Bloom
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Date
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1998
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Health Sciences, Nursing | Education, History of | Health Sciences, Education | Biography
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Abstract
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The work of nurses in all of human society is vitally linked to the value it places on life. As such, the collective activity of nurses--albeit intellectual, social, political, or occupational--can serve as an important indicator for judging the direction of a society's movement in expanding the opportunities for the health and well-being of its citizens.;Today American nurses are demonstrating their enlarging capacity and resolve to shape the direction of health care in this country--motivated in large measure by the ideals and philosophy they inherited from the founder of modern nursing, Florence Nightingale. But the ability of nurses to gain the leverage they need in achieving their goals depends on the extent to which they can convince influential members of society of their worthiness to control the domain of nursing practice in all its dimensions. According to theorist Eliot Freidson, the attainment of autonomy is an essential step for an occupation wishing to achieve full professional status.;Historically, the preserve for major decisions about health care became exclusively vested in the medical community commencing with the advent of scientific medicine. Physicians alone were granted unprecedented public confidence to control the medical workplace in the belief that they would be able to solve all the health needs of the future. Nurses, in turn, were viewed as subservient partners, incapable of originating the knowledge essential to fuel medical progress. Correlatively, lacking any autonomy approaching that of physicians, they were prevented from fully governing their professionalizing strategies. Hence, their power to influence the public discourse about matters that were important to them as a profession was vastly limited.;This study intends to investigate the genesis of these views about nursing, drawing heavily on discerning Florence Nightingale's motives and decisions in structuring modern nursing through the educational system she propagated. The major question is to what extent did she enhance or constrain the professional ambitions of nursing and, to what extent were her intentions influenced and altered by the larger social system. The answers to these questions may prove enlightening to scholars engaged in the sociology of professions and women's studies.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
